Sesame Street: Very Hard Mode
Sesame Street: Very Hard Mode. Dear Reader, There are some things in the world that are probably best left alone. Like why in the FUCK I discovered Sesame Street: Hard Mode. If you haven't read my account of that, I'll try to summarize. I stumbled upon Hard Mode after someone off-handedly mentioned the damn thing during a conversation I had been reading online. The thread had went practically silent after that, and yet eventually I still found myself with a copy of the first episode on my computer. Supposedly it was some kind of harder, more intense version of fucking Sesame Street of all things, made for an older audience. Now, the video I had watched contained an opening segment in which the fuckin' Count threatened to kill me through the screen. I really don't think I need to say more than that. My computer ended up pretty fucked up after the whole thing, and I'd had to get a new one. What I should have done was just left whoever or whatever the fuck was responsible for Hard Mode alone. I didn't. I started a thread asking what in the FUCK Hard Mode was all about. The replies were....unusual. Almost instantly, what was probably a bunch of fucking bots started replying "WHAT THE FUCK?" in all caps, along with several middle finger emojis. The replies came in so fucking fast my browser crashed. When I opened my browser again, a video immediately began downloading. Very_Hard_Mode.mov. Fuck it. I played the video. The Jim Henson Logo appeared, but someone had edited fucking blood effects all over it as shitty stock screaming sound effects played. A weird fuckin' picture of the Swedish Chef holding a knife started fading into view as dramatic music began to play and the words "you're next" appeared in Comic Sans. The video opened on a fucking pipe organ exploding all over a church. The explosion kept replaying from several camera angles as the pipes and keys burst everywhere and the rest of the organ caught on fire. The sounds of glass shattering and someone screaming "OH MY GOD" could also be heard. This scene was just kind of....there. In the back of the church were Bert and Ernie, who just kept laughing in what sounded like drunken Mexican voices. Then, Grover appeared. He was in front of a black background and drawing on it with a marker somehow. Grover started talking, but his voice was extremely quiet, and the audio occasionally just fucking shut off completely. I couldn't even really tell what he was saying. The only words I could make out were "music" and "chime". I assumed Grover was here to talk about musical instruments. Grover started wheeling out a piano, a cello, a violin, and a guitar. He played each instrument briefly, stopping after each one to talk for a moment. "And now....." Grover said LOUDLY, And that's when he WHIPPED out a fucking detonator and pressed the button, causing a massive fucking explosion and sending him and pieces of wood flying into the screen, causing shitty fake cracks to appear. When the smoke cleared, a creepy Green Grover puppet with slanted eyes appeared. His voice was EXTREMELY distorted, but he kept swinging fucking wind chimes everywhere, causing more cracks to appear on the screen, and repeating the phrase "Can you hear the chime?" A text box appeared. I guess he wanted me to answer that. That's when I realized. I couldn't actually hear the chime. I typed "no" into the text box. The fuck was this anyway, a hearing test? Grover BURST his chimes everywhere and stared into the screen FURIOUSLY. "YOU CAN'T HEAR SHIT, CAN YOU?" he SCREAMED in what was definitely not Grover's voice at all. He sounded just like my Dad, who never supported anything I did. Given the nature of the last video, I expected Grover to threaten to kill me or something, but instead, he grabbed a MASSIVE kitchen knife from out of nowhere and chopped off his own fucking head. It wasn't gory or anything, there was no blood, just stuffing spraying everywhere. I laughed. As long as there were no death threats this time, I really didn't care what else happened. But then, Big Bird appeared. Something was wrong with Big Bird. He kept lurching back and forth, like he had some kind of disorder. "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Big Bird SCREAMED for absolutely no fucking reason. Big Bird started wheeling out a chalkboard and drawing a shitty globe on it, making more loud noises as he did so. "It's time to learn Geography! I have a question to ask you!" he said. Big Bird paused for a moment as a pointer appeared on the screen, allowing me to click on different parts of the globe. "So....." Big Bird began, "WHERE THE FUCK IS PERU?" he shouted with intense RAGE. Big Bird started drawing fucking aliens attacking the globe and covering his drawing with terrible scribble explosions. "YOU BETTER FUCKIN' FIND IT!" he screamed as MASSIVE explosions began to destroy his surroundings. "FIND PERU, YOU POO!" he yelled. I didn't appreciate being called a turd, and I began to click the globe angrily as he started making fucking death threats. "Find my SHIT or DIE!" he yelled. I knew I'd heard something like that before once. That's right. The first time around, it had been The Count, asking me to SOLVE his shit or die. I wasn't even aware of the hard rock music that was playing until Big Bird picked up a fucking electric guitar and started riffing along. Well, I did it. I found Peru. Suddenly, fucking orange light began erupting out of Big Bird's eyes and mouth as he exploded. The scene changed and I found myself watching The Count in his house, scribbling something down on a piece of paper. The Count suddenly looked up from his work. "Ah ah ah! It's you!" he said emphatically. "It is time to continue our journey through mathematics!" This was the first thing to truly frighten me. Not this Count shit again. I'd already done this once, and that was enough. The Count returned to scribbling some shit on his paper and held it up. 1 + 1. The fuck? 1 plus fuckin' 1? THAT was his question? Well, I wasn't about to argue with something easy right now. A text box appeared just as I expected, and I typed 2. Except, I didn't. The "2" key on my computer suddenly stopped fucking working. I kept pressing 2, but nothing happened. I tried typing the word "two", but only numbers were allowed. The Count quickly grew irritated, and, just as I expected him to do, held up a fucking clock and yelled "Solve my SHIT or DIE!" It was still shocking, even though I'd seen him do it before. Finally, a fucking 2 appeared in the box. I went to press the "enter" key when suddenly, ALL the fucking "2"'s I had tried to press flooded the box at once. I was mortified. I had just told The Count that the answer to 1 + 1 was 22,222,222,222,222,222,222,222. The Count sighed. The most HORRIFYING music I had ever heard began to play as The Count RIPPED a chainsaw out of the fucking wall and began to start revving it up. "Are you FUCKING STUPID?" The Count HOLLERED. The Count RAN towards the screen with his chainsaw, screaming. I don't know what I expected to happen, but I actually felt like my life was in danger for a moment. The Count dropped the chainsaw by accident and started swearing again as a thick cloud of chainsaw smoke filled the screen and the scene changed, thank God. We see Kermit the Frog. Ah, my old favorite. Kermit looked and sounded normal, and was sitting on a log strumming his banjo. "Hi-ho! Kermit The Frog here! Today, we're going to talk about cookies!" Cookie Monster suddenly BURST into the scene, sending fucking rock and rubble everywhere as he erupted out of the ground. "Me want COOKIE!" he said, as Cookie Monster often did. "Hold on, Cookie Monster." Kermit said. "If you eat too many of those.." Kermit's voice suddenly changed to an aggressive African-American man's voice as he whipped out a doctor's outfit. "YOU'RE GONNA GET FAT AND HAVE A FUCKIN' HEART ATTACK AND FUCKIN' DIE!" he said as fucking ambulance sirens played in the background. Kermit then suddenly said it was time to talk about weed, and lit up a joint as Cookie Monster ate a brick. Kermit kept making fucking flatline sounds as he thrashed around in his doctor's outfit and whooped. What the HELL was that bit about? Health? And Kermit? He dated a fucking fat pig! Then came the last scene. It was Oscar the Grouch. He was sitting in a dark alleyway inside of some fuckin' trash can, like Oscar always did. "What is the meaning of life?" Oscar asked. Are you fucking kidding me? A philosophy question? A text box appeared, but I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what to say. Oscar sighed, climbed out of his trash can, and lit it on fire. That's when my computer started fucking beeping as like 6 thousand fucking viruses deleted my entire hard drive. As I said once before, dear reader, If you know how to get to Sesame Street.... Just forget about it.